33: Dress to Distress

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh lanugage and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



You know in Return of the Jedi? When the Rebels are on Endor, and like the terrorists they are, they steal some bikes and proceed to kill the guards? Well, when Leia meets Wicket, she's dressed like this:



...not exactly skimpy, is it? In fact, it's rather practical. So she heads off to the Ewok village with Wicket, unable to speak a word of the local language, and her co-conspiritors turn up a few hours later. When she comes out to see what all the shouting is about, she's wearing this:



Why? She was already wearing clothes, it's not like the Ewoks have made her put something more 'appropriate' on, and it's certainly less practical for fighting off an invading extra-terrestrial army. It's not even like the Ewoks wear clothes! Apart from a couple of head-dresses and some practical slings/bandoliers, they're all walking around in the nip! So rather than try to communicate with the little critters about their impending doom, she's got a few of them to cobble a dress together for her. Charming.

Maybe if Leia had been in the village for a few days, or her clothes had been irreparably damaged?



But no. She goes back to wearing her military gear later on. Costume change for the sake if it, apparently. There wasn't even a figure produced of the Ewok dress back in the old days, so it's not even like GL was wanting to push more toys (although there are several versions of that outfit now, obviously).

So what gives?



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

32: Review - The Time Traveler's Wife

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


WARNING: WILL contain spoilers.

The Time Traveler's Wife
(2009, 107 mins,Dir. Robert Schwentke)



Put Simply: Why does the American spelling of Traveler only have one L?
Stars: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ned Ryerson out of Groundhog Day.

What a remarkable film. I really wasn't expecting a lot out of it. The trailer looked interesting, but after that, it seemed to be marketed as a chick-flick. Which it's not really.

Chick-flicks are things like The Ugly Truth, The Proposal and ...Shopaholic. The thing (for me) which signifies a chick-flick is watching the trailer for a formulaic romantic comedy, and thinking that the main roles are filled by actors and actresses who, frankly, should know better at this stage in their careers. The Time Traveler's Wife doesn't fall into this category at all. It's a beautifully told, well acted story.

The film follows Henry, a man who is afflicted with unpredictable, uncontrollable time-travelling fits, where he jumps to different times within his lifeline. He gets a 'warning shot' about five seconds before he's going to go, and also on the return trip, but other than that, it could happen at any time. He also loses his clothes when he jumps. So far, it sounds like a mashup of Quantum Leap and Terminator, right? It's probably close to Quantum Leap in that he jumps distance as well as time. Although the only life he's got to 'put right' is his own.


It should be said that I do love a bit of time-travel in a movie, the less orthodox the better. And although I went in with an open mind, my jaw hung open as in the first five minutes of the film, our hero breaks just about every rule of time-travel that's in the handbook. We see him:
• Talk to his younger self
• Introduce himself to his younger self
• Physically touch his younger self
• Tell his younger self about the future

Other than whipping his old chap out, I don't think there's anything else he could have done to try and fuck up the space-time continuum good-and-proper. In fact, Henry's regard of the continuum seems to be that of a child with a shatter-proof ruler; he doesn't use it as any kind of measure, he just tries his best to break it. Anyway, it doesn't seem to matter and reality doesn't cave in on itself. Further similar anomalies crop up later in the film, but by then we just kind of accept it.

The story is surprisingly linear for a film about time-travel. Once we establish that he's interacting with his own life, I expected to see more 'circular scenes' where we see the jumps happening from both points of view. But when Henry appears to his child-self, we only see that at the beginning of the film (when Henry is a child, so we don't get to know at what point as an adult he makes that jump back. Henry explains in the film that he gets drawn back to the same places ("it's like gravity"), namely the meadow where he meets his future wife Clare, although it appears he always jumps to a different time, otherwise he'd keep bumping into his time-travelling self as well as his 'static' self, wouldn't he?

That being said, there are a pleasing number of 'circular references' where information is passed through the timeline causing events to happen (the name of the geneticist, the dates Henry will travel back to, etc). Henry eventually finds a doctor to diagnose the source of the trouble, and although it seems to be genetic, we don't learn why he's the first in his bloodline to be affected. The book may well expand on this, apparently it's been trimmed heavily on the road to filmdom.

So, the years pass and we see Clare (the film's about her, remember?) getting understandably (and yet inexplicably) irritated at her husband's chronological narcolepsy. What's she moaning about? She knew what she was getting into, surely? Don't marry an alligator then whine when it bites you.


• On a lighter (if creepier) note: Does anyone else find it a bit sinister that Henry's used his gift of time-travel to essentially groom a child? Even Henry says in the film that he doesn't understand why a little girl, alone in a meadow, wasn't freaked out when a naked man appeared in the bushes and knew about her and her family. But that doesn't make it morally justified, surely? Dirty old man :p

• It's a laboured point in the film that when Henry jumps, he doesn't take his clothes with him. He explains that he's got pretty good a 'acquiring' clothes at the other end of each jump, and while he returns roughly to the same spot, it's not the exact spot. The Library is a good example where his clothes are there for him to put back on once he's returned, but what if he jumps while he's walking in the street? He's going to lose those clothes, they won't be there for him later. So why isn't he walking around everywhere in a pair of Primark summer shorts and flip-flops? He must spend a bloody fortune in replacing his lost clothes.

• When Henry takes advantage of his skills and memorises the lottery numbers, was I the only person thinking "...that hasn't only just occurred to you, has it?" Inconvenient or not, if I was him I'd be living like Hayden Christensen at the start of Jumper.


Anyhow, the movie is a great love story, not only about Clare and Henry, but also their daughter Alba. The end of the movie had me filling up a little (although not sobbing like others in the cinema), although it's not difficult to make me cry with a film. The Muppet's Christmas Carol does it every time. Fuck it, I'm in touch with my emotional side.

Overall: I really enjoyed this. Nicely shot, superbly acted (well, maybe apart from young-young Alba) and very engaging. Not sure how much I'll get out of repeated viewings (which is unusual for a time-travel film), but I don't think that matters too much. If you feel nothing at the end of this film, you have no soul.


I reckon: 8/10

If you liked The Jacket (Adrian Brody, Keira Knightly), you'll like this. If you enjoyed this but haven't seen The Jacket, go down to Blockbuster and get that out.



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

31: A World Without Beer: Week 10

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


"Week 10" or "Spot The Difference"...



Woah-oh, we're two thirds of the way there,
Woah-oh, living on no be-er.
Jon Bon Jovi, Livin' on a Prayer, first draft, 1984.


The end of ten weeks without booze (well, almost. Y'know...), and a revelation seems to have hit me. No, it's not that "better man" shite I was worried was going to happen, I'm still as annoyed with the world as ever, and I still want a pint.

It wasn't the beer at all!

Remember back at the start of this when I said that hopefully a hundred days without alcohol would, amongst other things, clear my skin up a little? It became apparent at around week three that it wasn't going to happen. Not acne, just spots. The condition of my skin was as irrational as ever. As irrational as say... my caffeine intake?

It varies from day to day, but rarely a day goes by without caffeine of some description (read: Coffee in the mornings, Diet Coke/Pepsi in the evenings). I find I'm pretty much "on fire" after three coffees, which is helpful for work.

So, it occurred to me after a series of mornings waking up with a face like a 14yr old, that I had been drinkng a lot of coffee recently. Not as a replacement for alcohol, just because I like coffee. So I figured I'd try cutting the caffeine over the last week. And it seems to have worked. Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better, certainly.

It wasn't the beer at all! It was the coffee!

I've had no noticable withdrawal sypmtoms. Although I'm fairly irritable at work anyway, coffee or not :P Haven't had any headaches either. It's not like I was drinking 20 cups of coffee a day, but combined with the Diet Coke it was probably bordering on "too much".

Of course, I'm constantly tired now. Especially from when I wake up until around 1pm. And I don't seem to be sleeping any better for it. My better half will attest to me having strange dreams and shouting in the night a couple of times this week. So if that's not the coffee, and not the beer, and I don't do gaming in the evening at the moment... who fucking knows? We'll solve that problem when we get to it.

It also doesn't solve the problem of "I like coffee". I may have to trial a safe level, which could take a while.

+++++

I will, of course, finish the run of 100 days off the booze. A clearer complexion wasn't all I was looking for, although I'm going to have to work out more. I seem to be a little slimmer, but haven't lost any weight. Explain that.

I've just calculated that I'm 66 days into the hundred as I write this, which is pretty cool. Take two of those out as gratis days, and add another one on, and I've got 37 days to go. Sweet.

I'm off now to drink some water. Whoopee.




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

30. My Wena in the UK!

The My Wena EP is now available in the UK!



http://www.klicktrack.com/agrecords/releases/bowling-for-soup/my-wena-ep

Click on through for Wena goodness!
ROCK!

29: Take a look at My Wena!

http://www.mywena.com

28: A World Without Beer: Weeks 7,8+9

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



I know, I know, three bloody weeks. Hardly Samuel Pepys, am I? I wanted to do an entry at the end of Week 8, but I went to see Natalie on Thursday night, then Friday morning was off to Bournemouth with no internet access (so little point in taking the laptop). Anyway, I'm here now.

As you can see from the small-but-beautiful image above, the previous three weeks have included one of my gratis-days, where I get a brief escape from my self-imposed alco-exile.


There was a distinct possibility of slapping two into the previous weekend, as Mr Reed was accompanying me to Natalie Imbruglia's warm-up gig at the Zodiac in Oxford. As one of the three escape-days happens to be his imminent birthday, and as I won't be in Broadstairs for his birthday, he'd suggested using the Nat gig as an alcoholic celebration.


As it turns out, he drove there and back, so there was no alcohol to be had. He'd said "well, we could have one pint?", but I pointed out that if I was to use up one of my precious gratis-days, it wasn't going to be for one fucking pint of lager. The bar at the Zodiac isn't even that good. It would also have meant having two days in very close proximity, as one was scheduled for Bournemouth. Not so much a problem in itself, but I'd then have to go booze-free from the 10th August to the 27th September; and that might be too much for my fragile soul to bear.

So yeah, Natalie did a fine show. The set was a little on the short side, but it was a warm-up for the V Festival, and those sets always are. It took her voice three or four songs to warm up, and unfortunately Torn was within that bracket, but once she'd played that, most of the dickheads surrounding us no longer had a need to be at the front, which made the rest of the set more relaxed for others like me. By "like me", I am of course referring to the fact that I can't fucking stand people. Individuals can be okay, but crowds of baying morons, pissed, sweating and brushing against me just pisses me off. Especially when I'm on the diet coke.

Anyway, can't complain. Had a great night, and was reminded how obnoxious drunk people can be, which made me feel superior for not being one of them. (It didn't, it made be want to be one of them.)

+++++


Next up was Bournemouth. Had a really nice short-weekend there last year, so we went down for a long-one this year. The weather held up again, so I was out in the sea on Saturday and Sunday, proving to myself that my swimming skills are practically non-existent. And as much as I may look in the mirror and grumble about my beer-belly (which is inexplicably still there), I was able to look around the beach and realise that I'm actually quite a skinny bastard. Compared to some of those sights anyway. Christ. After witnessing various things which should not be squeezed into lycra and paraded in public, I needed that well deserved drink...


Beautiful. No, not my sunburned face (although certainly the wisely-kept-in-the-shade, face of my fianceé), more the several bottles of Newcastle Brown which I imbibed on Saturday night. I say several because I can't remember if it was five or six. To be fair, I was worryingly un-pissed after those. I could certainly feel I'd been drinking, but I wasn't falling over and being sick. This proves to me that I hadn't built up the alcoholic's resistance to drink that people go on about, but that I'm just hard as nails when it comes to The Brown.

We also got a free bottle of Magners from their promo people doing the rounds of the pubs. The young lady came over to our table and asked "Would you like a free taste of Magners this evening?". Being the suspicious cynic that I am, I replied "No, I'm fine thanks", thinking it would be a thimble-sized glass from the bottle she had with her.
Our lass, on the other hand, was more quick thinking and responded "Oh, I will, thanks", upon which the lady with the tray left us with the full bottle and a pint glass. Fucking result! Our lass doesn't even drink cider, so guess who had to polish that one off?

While I wouldn't class myself as "pissed" that night (although I almost certainly was drunk in dictionary-terms), what I did experience was that immense wave of relaxation that I've been missing for so many weeks. I didn't care about all of the pissed dickheads in the pub that night, and any trace of a hangover that may have been around on Sunday morning was very quickly relegated after the fried breakfast at the hotel we were staying in. We had a great weekend, and it was good to be away from everything (even without any internet to distract me), with gorgeous weather for a few days.

Drink is good for you. The next six weeks aren't going to be easy.

Still, other amusing things I saw in Bournemouth:


The brass band was playing in the park, with people sitting in deckchairs and listening happily or snoozing away. This old lady, however, was going to spoil everything by stumbling to her feet, groaning, then biting the closest people to her; thus precipitating the zombie-plague of Bournemouth '09. Just think of all that un-guarded flesh on the beach, they'd have a fucking field-day!

Seriously though, who sleeps like that? My fianceé actually went and checked she was breathing. I wasn't going to do it; that's when their eyes snap open and they bite you...



Taken at horribly lo-res because I wanted to send it from my phone without sapping my bandwidth. Here we have the cheekiest tramp in Bournemouth. He looks trampy enough, with old, weathered clothes, sun-baked skin and yellow (which should be white) hair. So the fact that he's pushing a brand-new mountain bike, complete with pristine messenger-bag on the back, clearly makes him a thieving bastard. He was walking quite leisurely with the bike, perhaps so's not to draw too much attention to himself as he left the promenade and headed for the town centre. Although in doing this, he was leaving himself more prone to the legitimate owner of the vehicle finding him and battering him to death with the record-bag.
Bournemouth didn't seem to have a high tramp-population, but the ones that were there, were proper old-school tramps!

+++++

And that's about it really. The week since we got back from Bournemouth has been relatively event-free, although I've just moved over from the agency I've been working for, directly to the company themselves. I'm still a temp, but I'm in a better position than I was. Nothing more to report.

I'll be back in a few days with another crazy idea or theory which makes you wonder if I actually am still drinking...





DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

27: Balls to infinity...

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. This particular one also includes badly (if at all) researched scientific theories. Reader discretion is advised.


Maybe it's seven weeks without drinking, or maybe it's because this is how my mind works anyway, but I was thinking the other day about infinity.

Well, I say thinking, it crossed my mind. In the words of Bruce Dickinson, infinity really is hard to comprehend. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that it's not an actual number
.
If someone gave you a billion biscuits once a second for twenty years... you'd still be nowhere close. Although you'd probably be sick of biscuits.

Anyway, the thing playing in my mind was that playground argument that most kids have done (including myself):

: I've seen Star Wars 10 times.
: I've seen Star wars 100 times.
: Well I've seen it infinity times
: I've seen it infinity-plus-one times
: aahahahah! you knob! there's no such thing as infinity-plus-one!

Because even child-logic manages to grasp that if infinity can't be defined as an actual number, you can't possibly add a number on to it. Can you? I think we can do the next best thing...

+++ +++

For today's exercise, we're going to create a ball. A red ball. We're going to create it out of whatever we can find to make it tough, because it's going to last forever. Don't ask how, it just will.


There's our ball. Date-stamped at midday today. This ball will outlast the earth, the galaxy and even the universe itself. Like I said, don't ask how, because for the purposes of this exercise, the ball is going to be chronolgically-infinite; and if this ball can't be, then neither can anything else.

So, our ball has a fixed "start-point" in universal time. Before 12:00 today, it didn't exist. After 12:00 today, it did. 60 minutes after we make the red ball, we're going to make a blue one. Same materials, same properties, just a different colour.


This blue ball will also last forever. Same rules as above. We now have two balls (...quiet at the back), one an hour older than the other one; and that's the key.

If we come back to them tomorrow at 1pm, we can see how old they are:



As time is flowing smoothly, they've both existed at the same rate, and the red one is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, at this point they're both roughly a day old. If we come back to them in a year...



And obviously, the red ball is still an hour older than the blue one. Of course, these are just snapshots of how they looked at any one point in time. The balls can't be said to be "infinite" yet, because they're both only a year(ish) old. This problem will be inherent in any snapshot we take because, as we identified earlier, we can't stop at "infinity" to take a picture - the number doesn't exist. But by now, I think you know where I'm heading with this.

So what we'll have to do next is make a statement, rather than a snapshot. Like I said, these balls will exist forever. We know that, because that's how we created them.



Although both balls a chronologically "infinite", the red ball will ALWAYS be one hour older than the blue one. Although the blue one will go on forever, the red one has been around longer. Can this be defined as "infinity-plus-one"?

Again, we're assuming there that infinity can be defined as a solid number. Although, to be fair, we're assuming that the balls will survive the end of the universe. As popular theory suggests the universe is 13.7 billion years old (which isn't a lot when you write it down), it seems silly to assume that it won't end at some point. And as we don't know what happened before the creation of the universe, we have no idea what will happen after it. Where do all the balls go?


Another way to look at it would be to suggest that as the balls have different-but-fixed starting points, they aren't truly infinite. Using the above exercise, any infinite object that was created before them would be older, and therefore "more infinite". Using that logic, the only infinte objects would be those that have always existed. Namely, objects that don't have a starting point, in the same way as the red and blue balls don't have an ending point. This would make the "original-infinite" objects older than the physical universe. If we could find one of these objects, we'd arguably have a way to find out what existed before the universe began.

But that's all wildly theoretical, of course. We haven't found an infinite object yet, and it seems a safer bet to assume that infinity can't exist, by its own definition.

...imagine the things I think about when I have been drinking.
Balls to it.





DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.